


Through Dark, Forbidding Waters

by Merixcil



Category: Daredevil (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), Luke Cage (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-29
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-10-12 16:38:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10495101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merixcil/pseuds/Merixcil
Summary: Claire keeps moving, keeps doing her job. Sooner or later the rest of the world will catch up.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I have not watched Iron Fist and as such, the events of the show have no bearing on this story.

Everyone’s heard the one about how New York never sleeps. It’s true, there ain’t no rest for the wicked and there’s a great want for good souls in this city. Out of towners take a while to adapt to the pace of these streets, the way the buildings stay the same but the shops never do, the way corners and street stalls are redistributed like rations every other week. For the people who have grown up here it’s an exercise in grief. New Yorkers aren’t born tougher than anyone else, but they learn how to handle their shit. There aren’t enough hours in the day to wish back all your yesterdays, you have to take the landscape of the city as it lies, and run fast enough to pass unnoticed.

Claire’s good at mourning on her own time. She keeps her head down, works hard. When she can’t bring herself to stay silent any longer she raises her voice just loud enough to be heard over the rabble, then she dashes for cover. She is productive, she is a survivor. The name ‘Jessica’ sounds like a switchblade caught between her teeth, she pretends she can’t see lawyers hovering at her patients’ bedsides. Tribute is a quiet thing for her, New York taught her it had to be.

Her Mami is less tolerant of her determination to keep pushing forward (always). She tries to bribe Claire into some downtime with promises of home cooked food and movie nights. It’s hard for her, having to stand by while her daughter takes it upon herself to save heroes.

Except they’re not heroes, or they would never admit to it, and if Claire’s saving anyone she’s just doing her job. When people try to tell Claire that soldiers or cops are heroes just because they put themselves where bullets might fly she has to fight not to roll her eyes. She’s seen doctors replace organs when the bullets hit home, nurses wrestle violent criminals into restraints to get a better read on their temperature, psychiatrists talk people back from the edge of buildings. They’re not heroes, they’re just doing what everyone expects of them. A hero is something more.

What that something more might be, Claire couldn’t tell you. She doesn’t think it’s a rage fuelled slip of a woman with a grudge to see to, or a blind man who wails on criminals because he can’t beat the Catholicism out of his bones.

It might just be a guy sweeping hair, serving drinks, keeping his head down and staying out of trouble only to rise up when his city needs him. It may even be a cop who lets the law slip through her fingers in pursuit of justice. Mami tells her that she’s a hero every night, without fail. If Claire’s out, she knows she’ll get a call just after six, “I love you, you’re my hero.”

Claire is out most evenings, picking up late shifts where she can. The truth of the matter is she doesn’t much want to go home until she can find somewhere to call her own. Her mother’s house is haunted by a girl with sad eyes, unblinking, starring up at Claire from the couch every time she goes into the living room. She barely knew Candace, but she’ll always have the image of the girl's eyes rolling back in her head, pretending to fall unconscious. It’s strange, the parts of people that stay with you.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Matt says in his best hero voice. He probably doesn’t even realise he’s doing it, the way he lets his voice tremble with emotion on the last syllable. He’s just trying to show that he cares, but Claire doesn’t need his sympathy, she needs justice.

Foggy passes her a cup of coffee before her hands can clench too far into fists. She gets where Jessica was coming from with that ‘not a hero’ speech she was so good at; it’s hard to feel heroic when you know your motives are as selfish as they are necessary. Luke deserves justice, or at the very least he deserves better.

And Claire? She deserves something, she’s sure of it. Maybe not her name in the papers or a spandex suit, but she must have earned a small slice of the pie. Matt didn’t work because Matt was never going to work, but with Luke she might have found something.

The coffee is an awful, instant mess, but she smiles and swallows it down anyway. She needs to save her energy for more important things, there’s no use getting angry at that which she cannot change.

Matt mumbles something about the difficulties of reconciling events in New York State with time owed in Georgia, but Karen is already running around the office with a notepad. Jotting down key words and case notes. Foggy grins at her like she’s the best thing that ever happened to him, and Claire has to wonder if she isn’t.

“We’ll be in touch,” Matt says, softly. Claire’s cue to leave.

There are hundreds of conflicting stories circulating, inside Harlem and out. No one’s even trying to pretend that Luke Cage is the villain anymore. Not even Mariah Dillard, who’s platform has sucked the hope from the epic of Diamondback like a parasite. That’s all the councilwoman is. Part of the flora and fauna of the neighbourhood, sure, but bleeding them dry one by one in search of her own slice of the town. At least she has the decency to be nice about it, holding Luke up as a shining example of black excellence. The press appear to have forgiven that business with the murder accusation, they only care about what Mariah is saying now.

Claire wraps up tight against the cold. She walks fast, with her head to the ground. Sometimes people recognise her from the blurred background of photos of Luke, or from the video of the fight against Diamondback, where she had stood on the front line, ready to rush in when the time came to do her job. She tries not to look up too often, lest she catch a pair of eyes staring back at her, expecting miracles. She doesn’t want to have to explain herself, she just wants to get on with things.

She just wants to know if Georgia is cold this time of year, if Seagate lets its prisoners freeze when the winter sets in. It’s been months, and she’s written twice as many letters as Luke has sent back to her. She knows he probably doesn’t have the time or resources to respond the way she wants him to, but part of her is convinced he just doesn’t have anything to say. It seems cold to go around blaming him for that, for the words stamped out of his mouth, the words held back by a bulletproof tide, but she needs something. The world rolls on by without him, and if he doesn’t make an effort to stay present he’ll be too far behind to ever catch up when he gets out.

Or Claire will forget him, and move on. They’re not in love, not quite, not yet. They like each other, and they’ve been through enough shit to break the back of any argument or upset that might come between them. But that’s not enough to hold them together for years without contact. New York will push Claire forward (always) and Luke will still be strapped to a crime he didn’t commit.

Her favourite coffee shop is tucked down a backstreet on the edge of Morningside. She goes alone, orders something dark and sweet. Claire stares out the window and tries to recognise people from fights and riots, from hospital gurneys, from the local news. Wondering how much time has to pass, how many people have to forget before it is as if something never happened.

She closes her eyes and thinks of Matt’s passion, Foggy’s optimism, Karen’s determination. If anyone can find a way it’s them, because they’re very good at their job, and Claire will stay patching people up. Be their hero, regular Joe, or superhero. On her best days she might even help a villain. It doesn’t sound very heroic, but there’s a nobility to it that she thinks Matt would appreciate.

Claire sees Misty from time to time, still working this beat with that impatient little blonde thing she now has for a partner. Sometimes so sharp it’s like the streets can’t help but part for her, sometimes in a daze.

“How you doing?” she asks, on the rare occasions her and Claire pass close enough to each other to talk.

Claire shrugs, “fine.”

“You still working Luke’s case?”

“Of course.”

“Well. Let me know if you need anything.”

Misty’s got a smile like a thousand yard stare, it trembles on closing syllables. It doesn’t look noble or heroic, it looks broken. Claire has to remind herself of the basement back at Harlem’s Paradise, Misty about to bleed out, her mouth curled into something confident and cocksure.

Flirtatious, impressed. That’s the Misty that Claire wants to remember. She supposes the ghost of Candace looks up from her couch too, from the back of the interrogation cell at the precinct, from street corners. This grief is not as private as it should be, it’s big enough to slow her down.

You can be the best detective your inspector has ever seen, and you can still have bad days, or weeks, or years. You can watch your work fall apart in your hands, and never quite trust yourself to put it back together again. One of the advantages of choosing nursing over medicine is that Claire is never expected to take ownership of a dead body, but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been nights where she’s watched a patient slip away and known that she could have done more.

Claire doesn’t need anything, Misty needs to be reminded of what she’s capable. Firm hands pushing Claire up against the wall, going after Diamondback with nothing but a gun, a bloodhound with her nose to the concrete. She knows these people, she could have the whole city in cuffs if she wanted to. But she has a reckless streak a mile wide, which is not quite wide enough to make up for the gaps in the system.

When Misty fell, she wasn’t injured in a way Claire knew how to fix. They’ll always have the basement of Harlem’s Paradise, that smile, all that blood. But this cuts deeper than nicked arteries.

Claire’s seen psychiatrists talk people back from the brink. It’s not that serious, not yet, and she doesn’t know Misty like that. She does the only thing she can think to do under the circumstances.

“My mum cooks a mean pollo asado. If you wanna come.”

Misty doesn’t smile at that, but she laughs. A short, sharp bark that sounds an awful lot like derision. Still, she follows Claire home, climbs the stairs of the old brownstone, sits herself down on the couch like she can’t see Candace peering up at her from it.

“I hope you like big portions,” Mami cautions with a grin that Misty doesn’t make the effort to return. It doesn’t matter, of course she’s a good eater. She tells stories of coming up small, playing basketball to prove she could. Claire can just imagine a little girl, tough as old boots with her hair pulled back into pompoms. Feeding herself up until she was strong enough to make up for the difference in height.

Mami’s tired, she vanishes off to bed as soon as the dishes are done, leaving Claire and Misty to tangle with the haunted expanse of the rest of the apartment. Claire doesn’t have single comfort or platitude to offer. Not because they’re not there and she’s not thinking them with all her heart, but because she knows Misty doesn’t want to hear them.

“You heard from Luke?” Misty asks. There’s something sad sitting in the corner of her eye, too far off to make out clearly.

“A couple of times, yeah.” When Claire speaks she almost sounds positive, unworried. “He’ll be fine.”

“That he will.”

“The doctor said he wouldn’t age.”

Misty’s mouth twitches almost imperceptibly, the possibility of eternity held within. “Lucky bastard. What does that mean for you?”

“What do you mean?” Claire asks before she can remember that Misty doesn’t appreciate people playing dumb.

“I mean,” she says, jaw a shade too tight for comfort, “what’s it like to have a boyfriend who’s not gonna grow old the same way you are?”

“I haven’t really thought out it. Haven’t had the chance. I haven’t…we never even got to go for coffee.”

The traces of a smile can heard spilling from Misty’s lips, “Luke does like his coffee.”

“He hates coffee,” Claire retorts.

“I know.”

It’s almost funny, to think they know a person so well they can try and hold onto him, even when he’s not there to hold on for himself. Claire allows herself a chuckle, and the flat line of Misty’s mouth doesn’t tremble when she speaks for the rest of the evening. The night closing in around them, in a city where are no heroes save the pedestals they put themselves upon.

Every dark hoodie hides a face that may or may not be someone Claire is looking for. She doesn’t have Jessica’s number, and Alias Investigations don’t seem to advertise anywhere, but she’s absolutely certain she’s still out there. The smell of whiskey still ignites rage in Claire like a phantom limb she never meant to inherit. Part of her wants to tell Jessica what happened to Luke, part of her wants to hire her to hunt down Mariah Dillard.

She doesn’t know which one’s stronger, till she finds a figure falling out of a bar at two in the morning on her way home. An impossibly slight little thing, whose fingers leave imprints in the wall where she grabs it to steady herself.

“Jessica?” Claire starts.

Jessica stumbles to the curve and pukes into the gutter, heaves up all that alcohol and misery, forcing her hands onto her knees. Claire doesn’t want to be the bearer of bad news, or an employer, she wants to do her job and she wants to do it well, the way she always does. Pulling hair back out of faces, asking for directions back to the apartment Jessica shares with whatever pests manage to make it through the cracks in the wall.

“What’re you doing here?” Jessica slurs, curled into the foetal position on the couch. Claire goes into the kitchen, finds a bucket under the sink and an almost-clean glass on the top shelf of one of the cupboards. She fills the glass with water and pours it down Jessica’s throat, then sets the bucket in front of her in case she needs to puke again.

She’s helping, she doesn’t need to justify herself. Jessica needs all sorts of help that Claire can’t give, she needs to be talked back from the edge or beaten into a pulp. She needs to be reborn but she doesn’t want to be, she wants to take her pain and live with it. Jessica’s not a hero, but she’s suffering like one. Swallowing all the dark little pieces of New York that she gets to see when the lights go out and pushing them into the place Killgrave used to be.

It’s sometime after four before either of them speak again, Jessica leaning forward to catch Claire’s attention, “I heard about Luke.”

“What did you hear?”

“Everything. I’m pretty good at hearing what I want to hear.”

Luke and Jessica broke beds together, the superstrong meeting the superstrong, the rock and a hard place. Claire doubts there was any innuendo there, no talk of coffee or cheesy lines about how dark and bold a Cuban roast is. “I’m sorry, Jessica.” Is all she can think to say.

“Don’t be,” Jessica shrugs, “he made his mistakes, same as the rest of us.”

And the rest of us aren’t in prison for something we didn’t do, Claire doesn’t say. But arguing with Jessica is pointless, her eyes are too firmly focused on the horizon, even though her feet are so far in the past as to be invisible. She’s not moving exactly, but she’s stretching forward (always) just as far as the city will carry her.

Claire slips out after Jessica has fallen asleep, she leaves her number scrawled on an old business card on the desk. It’s not that she’s expecting to ever get a call, but she feels better knowing Jessica has that option if she wants it.

It’s too late, or too early. Claire sleeps the day away and wakes up to Candice peering down at her. Frightened and waiting for the moment she doesn’t have to be any more. That girl died scared, and when she went she took the magic bullet that could have taken Mariah down.

Work is as exactly as exhausting as everything else and exactly as rewarding. Sometimes people die in Claire’s arms but at least she knows she did everything she could. The months roll by and no one comes in beaten half to death for reasons that refuse to explain, no one comes in with bulletproof skin. Claire keeps waiting for the moment the universe will try to flip the world on its axis once again, just for her. She keeps doing her job, keeps her head down, anticipating the moment at which she will be asked to straighten her back, stand up and be counted.

She writes to Luke, tells him about how the neighbourhood changes from day to day and she’s still pushing forward (always) because she can’t bear to stand still and let the past drown her. She doesn’t want to turn into Misty, too hard to be soft and too soft to be hard, not where it counts. Claire explains how to cut out bullets and treat sprains, as if any of that might be useful where Luke is. Maybe he’ll come back and a different doctor will have taken the time to mull him over, give him a few upgrades. Flames from his hands, elasticity, something like that.

Or maybe they’ll take away his powers, just because they can.

“You still writing to him?” Misty asks every time she comes round, like it’s a little harder to believe each time. It’s been over a year, Luke’s replies are short and infrequent. Clare doesn’t feel jilted so much as cold. Never start a relationship half way to the big house, it goes nowhere fast.

Every Tuesday afternoon, Misty stops to play basketball on that old slab of concrete, with whichever kids are spoiling for a good game. She trounces them every time, she never smiles. Claire watches when she can, pressed up against the grating, not trying to be subtle. Sometimes she imagines that she’ll turn around one of these days and find Jessica has snuck up on her, like that little jewel knows the meaning of subtlety.

Matt pulls his best sympathetic expressions for Claire that afternoon, “I can make sure he’s cleared once he’s back in the state, but there’s nothing I can do about Georgia.”

“It’s fine,” Claire tells him, and after all this time it sort of feels fine. She could take a moment to feel guilty for letting this slide, but she knows Luke never expected to get out of paying this debt. She closes her eyes and tries to remember the feeling of his lips on hers, how the whole world seemed to start over in that moment. But it’s gone, lost to the past like so much of Mariah Dillard’s rapsheet. And they’re all still in Harlem, moving forward (always).

Misty turns her nose up at the news, “your lawyer friend wasn’t so good after all.”

They’re a block away from Pop’s old barbershop, only it’s not a barbershop anymore. Its windows are boarded up, waiting for the right stroke of genius to hit the neighbourhood and bring it to life again. Soon enough, they’re gonna need Switzerland, “he’s just doing his job.”

“Aren’t we all,” Misty stares down streets towards a horizon only she can see. There are whole crime scenes building and rebuilding in her mind even as they speak. She never misses a detail, she never shuts up and she never sits down.

Except when she does, because she’s scared that she’s missed something, and the world comes falling down around her shoulders. Claire doesn’t know how to fix that, but she thinks she’d like to try.

“You wanna go get some coffee?”

“I’m working,” Misty snaps, a reflex. “And I don’t like coffee.”

“I know,” Claire is trying to think about Luke, missed dates, rain checks. She’s trying to make him significant in the way she thinks he ought to be, the hero of this story.

This story has no heroes, just people doing their jobs. Sometimes a person’s job is to patch people up and send them on their way, sometimes it’s to stand up and be counted. Misty’s mouth twitches, corners rising from an unseen slumber till they almost look like bullet wounds.

Misty Knight holds bullets between her teeth, she’ll point them out to you if you ask nicely. Claire’s going to ask her very nicely, over a cup of something dark and bitter. Eventually you have to stop pretending any part of this is sweet.

“I get off at six.” Misty says. Then she vanishes. Of course she does, this is her home, there’s nothing it can be that will phase her. Claire watches her vanish out of the corner of her eye. She walks so tall, for such a little thing. She’s not even bulletproof.

Only Luke Cage is bulletproof. Everyone else has to make do with the skin they’ve got. Claire’s managed just fine all these years, coasting through the night while people with more flare than her make headlines. At least now, when she really needs it, she can find the courage to reach out and take something for herself.


End file.
